


the kids are alright

by WanderingCreep



Category: Game Grumps, Good Game (TV 2017)
Genre: Bar fights, Blood, M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 01:57:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12223407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WanderingCreep/pseuds/WanderingCreep
Summary: ryland finds himself patching up alex at three o'clock in the morning.if he's being honest, he wouldn't have it any other way.





	the kids are alright

the kids are alright

 

Ryland is accustomed to Alex’s late night drinking habits.

He’ll go to the bar and come back at some ungodly hour of the morning, somewhere between three and four, depending on if he decides he wants to come straight home after last call. No matter how quiet he is, Ryland can always hear him coming in, hears the jingle of his keys, the way they get stuck in the lock, the creaking of the hinges on the door, and eventually Alex’s drunken, uncoordinated stumbling around the apartment.

Sometimes he hears the refrigerator being opened. Sometimes he just hears the springs in the couch compress as Alex drops like a sack of bricks on top of it. Sometimes he hears the shower being started. Sometimes he hears Alex throwing up in the toilet. No matter what he does, he always makes noise.

Which is why it’s such a shock when he doesn’t.

Ryland hadn’t actually heard the door open and close this time. He’d like to blame it on the fact that he was exhausted from trying to level with his teammates and get a coherent practice session out of them earlier in the day, but to be fair, Alex was always finding ways to keep him on his toes.

He’s still asleep when the front door opens, still asleep when it closes. He doesn’t hear the footsteps making their way through the living room and down the hall. He doesn’t even stir when his bedroom door opens.

Somehow, through his near dead-sleep, Ryland feels him before he hears him. It feels like he’s being watched, and never one to like being stared at, he grimaces in his sleep and moves to turn over, away from whatever’s looking at him.

Then he feels the first poke.

It's quick, like the person poking him is wary that any sudden movements might provoke Ryland into biting them. 

The gods have bene kind to them, because Ryland really doesn’t want to wake up, and stupidly tries to stay asleep in the wake of what could very well be a home invasion.

Then the second poke comes, and he feels himself getting annoyed. He grunts; they can _have_ the tv -they can take whatever they want- he just wants to sleep. Seriously, what burglar had to wake up the person they’re trying to rob? Shouldn’t they want him to stay asleep?

The third poke comes, and its slightly harder than the rest, digging relentlessly into Ryland’s shoulder, and that's it; he's had enough. Ryland rolls over and opens in his eyes in the same motion, and _wow_ , he is not prepared for what’s standing by his bed.

“Holy _shit_ -“

It’s not a burglar at least. It’s worse.

It’s Alex.

Alex, covered in blood from his face and hands, standing in the dark over Ryland’s bed, staring down at him with a blank expression and dark eyes. The front of his shirt, a simple light blue henly, is smeared with something dark –if Ryland had to guess, probably more blood-and he’s shaking like a leaf. He looks like he’s been in a horror movie, either doing the killing or the one being killed. An unsettling thought, considering he’d been quietly watching Ryland sleep for god knew how long in the dark. Ryland’s eyes dart from his hands to his face, his brain immediately sobering up from sleep, heart racing a mile a minute. For a moment, everything is deafeningly silent.

Then Alex, still bleeding and shaking, says, “Please help me.”

 

 

Admittedly, Ryland sat there staring at Alex for a stupid amount of time before vaulting out of bed and herding Alex out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. Ryland turns on the light, sits him down on the toilet and rummages around for the first aid kit they keep under the sink. Alex sits quietly, staring down at his hands, at the walls, at Ryland.

He’s drunk, Ryland knows -he can smell the alcohol on him- but something's off: he's not a quiet drunk. This isn’t typical sloshed Alex behavior. Alex is usually overly affectionate, his usual tactile personality turned up to eleven, and he's always talking, even if what he's saying doesn't always make sense. He looks out of it now, like he's not sure what's going on around him. It probably has something to do with the fact that he’s bleeding all over the place; the poor guy was probably in shock. He never could take the sight of blood well.

Now that the lights are on, and Ryland can actually see, it doesn’t look as bad as he thought at first. Most of the blood is coming from Alex’s nose, which now has a piece of tissue stuck inside to staunch the flow of blood, and, upon closer inspection, from a nasty looking cut on Alex’s palm.

“What happened?”

Alex turns his head to follow his voice, blinks, then laughs humorlessly. “Oh. I, um, got into a bar fight.”

Ryland pauses, hands hovering over the now open first aid kit he’d found, and looks up at Alex. “You…what?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” says Alex pleadingly, like he knows Ryland won’t believe him. “I was just sitting at the bar, and these guys got too rowdy and I got knocked off my stool.” He glances down at his hand. “I guess I must’ve cut myself on some broken glass on the way down.”

Ryland sighs heavily, already feeling pressure building behind his eyes. It was entirely too early for this shit. Alex ducks his head.

“Sorry,” he murmurs.

“Don’t apologize,” grumbles Ryland. He kneels in front of him and turns his hand this way and that, trying to assess the damage. “It’s not your fault.”

The cut doesn’t look too deep; at least Ryland hopes. It doesn't look like there's any glass caught inside the wound; but what does Ryland know? Still, it’s not really in their budget to have to go to the hospital for stitches. He reaches over and grabs a washcloth from the sink and begins cleaning the blood away, careful not to press too hard, and hopes beyond hope that Alex hasn't royally fucked up his hand.

“Are you mad at me?” comes Alex’s voice. It’s quiet, kind of sheepish, like he expects Ryland to blow up at him.

“Why would I be mad at you?”

Alex shrugs. “I bled all over the carpet.”

Ryland feels some of the annoyance at being woken up ebbing away at Alex's soft admission.

He really can't be irked at him after that.

He gently cleans away most of the blood and then goes for the antiseptic in the kit. “Did you?”

“Yeah. I probably got blood on the front door too.”

“That’s okay.” He soaks a cotton ball in antiseptic and nudges Alex. “This is gonna sting, okay?”

Alex nods, and hisses when Ryland touches the cotton ball to the cut. He squirms a little while Ryland disinfects the wound, but remains relatively silent the rest of the time. It’s kind of disconcerting. Ryland’s not used to him being this quiet.

When he’s done, Ryland throws the cotton ball away and starts wrapping gauze around Alex’s hand. It doesn’t go unnoticed how Alex sporadically raises a hand to his jaw and rubs at a bruise blossoming a faint purple there.

“How’d you get that bruise?” Ryland asks him.

Alex seems to notice he’s still nursing said bruise and immediately drops his hand. He ducks his head again and shrugs. “I may have tried to break up the fight,” he admits sheepishly.

Ryland sighs and rolls his eyes. “Don’t ever do that again."

“I was just trying to help.”

“I know, that’s the problem. You’re always trying to help. You can’t always help people. You should learn when to just walk away, y’know?” says Ryland, steadfastly winding the gauze around Alex’s palm. “You gotta stop trying to make everybody happy. Not everybody is gonna try to work things out, not everyone’s gonna want your help. What if those guys had, I don’t know…beat you up or something and just left you in an alley by a dumpster?”

Alex shrugs again. “You’d come get me,” he says quietly.

Ryland shakes his head. “I’m not always gonna be there.”

He misses the way Alex’s expression crumbles, the flash of fear that crosses his eyes. He hears Alex mumble an apology, shakes his head, replies with, “Just try to be smarter about things next time. I’m not abandoning you or anything, it’s just…I can’t be everywhere at once. I can’t always come after you.”

He finishes wrapping the gauze and stands to put it back into the first aid kit. Alex tracks his movements, looking sluggish, but hopeful. “You’ve never let me down before.”

Ryland freezes, only for a moment, before going back to the first aid kit. Leave it to Alex to paint him up as a better person than he actually was.  “Doesn’t mean I won’t. I’m only human.”

“Yeah,” says Alex, flexing his injured hand. “But you’re my best friend. You’d never do it on purpose. Like those guys at the bar. They didn’t mean to knock me off my chair. They were probably just having a bad day or something. That’s why I tried to help. No one’s just a bad person for the sake of it. That’s why I’ll never stop trying to make people happy.”

Ryland closes the first aid kit and turns to Alex. “You’re too innocent for your own good.”

Alex just smiles brightly at him. “You love me though.”

“Against my better judgement.”

Alex laughs softly, and then holds out his arms. “We should hug. That was a nice moment we just shared.”

Ryland rolls his eyes and puts the first aid kit back under the sink. “I’m not hugging you. You have blood all over your shirt, and it’s too early for this shit. You need a shower, and to stay as far away from bar as possible for the next few days. I’m going back to bed.”

Alex nods and gives him a thumbs up with his good hand. “Okay. After a shower, then.”

Ryland gives him a look that screams ‘ _not a fucking chance’_ and shuffles back to his bedroom, leaving Alex to shower. “If you touch me, I’m seriously going to shave you bald in your sleep.”

He doesn’t mean it, and Alex knows it.

That still doesn’t stop Alex from trying to collect on that hug after he gets out of the shower, though.

**Author's Note:**

> i watched the entire show yesterday and had fun. decided to contribute something to the fandom for kicks.


End file.
